U.S. Bancorp, Minnesota’s second-largest bank by deposits, was downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service as interest rates near record lows pressure earnings.

The senior debt rating was lowered to A1 from Aa3, reflecting “the inescapable challenges that even a well-managed and diverse banking franchise currently faces,” the ratings firm said Thursday in a statement on the Minneapolis-based lender. “Among these challenges are protracted low interest rates that will place pressure on US Bancorp’s net interest margin.”

Excluding the first quarter of this year, U.S. Bancorp has boosted profit every quarter since the last three months of 2009. CEO Richard Davis, who has run the lender since 2006, never posted a loss while at the helm and calls his banking strategy of taking deposits and making loans “boring.”

Tom Joyce, a spokesman for U.S. Bancorp, declined to comment on the downgrade.

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